The Demon's Tale
by Fox in the Stars
Summary: Based on Symphony of the Night. The Demon Familiar tells his own story of long ago, in his own words. Now reloaded with functional formatting.


The Demon's Tale

by Half-Esper Laura  
based on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, copyright © 1997 Konami

Author's Note: Just to get us on the same sheet of music and avoid confusion, in my own version of Alucard's story, he actually lived with his Dad, quite against his will, for some time leading up to Castlevania 3 (when he fought Dracula along with Trevor Belmont et. al.). Most of the Demon's Tale takes place in that time-frame, a few centuries before Symphony of the Night took place. 

*

Well, of course you have to know, I've been in Hell. I probably shouldn't tell you about that; "Man was not meant to know" and all, but I don't figure you'll believe me---I mean _really believe me_---anyway, so I guess it's okay. 

The thing about Hell is that there's nothing there. You don't understand, there is _nothing there_. On earth there's so much here that people take for granted. People can stand out under a blue sky, with endless air all around, and the sun and clouds in the sky, and below them rocks, grass, trees, billions and billions of grains of sand, even flowers sometimes, and who knows what might be buried in the dirt for someone curious to dig around? And then the people loudly proclaim "There's nothing here!" It's embarassing. 

But even though there's nothing in Hell, you kinda start to think things. And you never see anybody else, but you think somehow that the other people there---assuming there are other people there---think those things too. I think humans are kind of like that. They all think things that no one ever tells them, and that they never see. 

But anyway, you start thinking things like how when demons like us are on earth, they always have a tail and two horns. The tail is so that the bigger, nastier demons can grab it and pull you back down whenever they want, and the horns are to keep halos away. 

I don't know; maybe I'm the only one who ever thought this. And maybe it was just some little thing I told myself to make it a little less bad. Because you---or at least I---start thinking that if a demon gives anything away of his own free will, he loses his tail. And if he gives more things away after that, he loses his horns, one at a time, until they're gone and then he can go looking for a halo, like humans do. So maybe I just made that up, to be my little ray of hope. But really, I think there's got to be something to it, and I'll tell you why. 

Maybe to you it sounds too easy. "Oh, you have to give stuff away is all? Well, I have all kinds of junk I want rid of." Ooh, that makes my skin crawl when you say things like that! Because there's nothing in Hell. So when you get to earth, and there's things, you feel like you're in Heaven, and you'll never let go of any of it, because it's... it's things! It is! You can see it and touch it and rub it and it's something! 

And somehow Lord Dracula knew all those things that I thought, or he seemed to, because he summoned out a bunch of us. Somewhere there's a bigger demon who keeps us in the nothing, and he must've worked out some kinda deal for a bunch of us little ones. Maybe the bigger ones are in just as much nothing as us, in which case it prob'ly wouldn't have been very high a price. When I was there, I would've done anything for a bottle of wine, even if it was a really bad year and tasted bad. You can't imagine how delicious it would have been, just to drink it down drop by drop and after every one shake all over and say "Oh, this tastes so bad!!" 

But I think he must have known all the things that I thought, because he brought us---and of course we were all happy to come---to be treasury guards. It was a contract thing, and in our contract we had to stay in the treasury, and we had to give him anything out of it that he asked for. Because if it hadn't been in the contract---a magic contract---we never would've let him have anything. Because he knew the things I thought, he knew we'd be perfect for the job. Here we were, in these huge chambers full to bursting with things! Oh, the joy! Of course we guarded it! If someone just came in, we wouldn't hurt them. In fact we'd all crowd around them like "Ooh! It's a thing! And it moves, and it's warm and soft!" They were as much a feast to our senses as the rest. And it was in our contract that we couldn't keep them, although we all wanted to. But if they tried to leave with something, and it wasn't in our contract to let them, well, we couldn't let them have our things, that we went so long without. We'd all go after them, like dogs after a rabbit. Blood and bones and screaming are things, too, you know. 

And we always had a perfect inventory. Anything that was there, at least one of us knew all about it, knew every detail of it, and exactly where it was. We'd spend all day sitting around with the piles of money, picking up the coins and staring at them, and seeing how every one was different, so if Lord Dracula had come and asked for the gold Roman coin where Emperor Hadrian's nose had three flecks of black on it and it was stamped about five hair's widths off-center to the left, I could go fetch it for him because I knew that very one. 

We all knew about the money. It was kind of a commons. But we demons are very greedy---you'd be too, if you were us---and we each staked out our little territories, and if someone started going into another's territory---which we did a lot, just to see more things---either there'd be a fight, or you'd have to be careful and not touch anything, while your host loomed over you. Territories were always changing. Sometimes they'd fight and the visitor would win, and then the host would wander around until he could find a spot that he could fight everyone else off of, and sometimes one of us would visit another's territory while they were off visiting someone else's, who was off visiting the first one's, and they'd change like that. Territories shifted constantly. Every few minutes, someone's stake had changed. 

Except for three things. First there was the big pile of money that was the commons, and when we got tired of fighting we'd all lay on it like a big cold shiny beach. But the second and third things are the ones that were really important. 

The second was the Lady. She was a painting on the wall, the most beautiful thing in the whole treasury. She was so beautiful that sometimes, when we were all tired of fighting and tired of laying around on the gold, we'd all sit and stare up at her, like you might stare up at the stars, and look at her for hours. We all wanted to fly right up and rub her and touch her, but it was in the contract that we could never touch the Lady. Once Lord Dracula came in, and there was some kind of fight going on, and we were all startled and someone got thrown into the wall, and his wing just touched the Lady's frame so she shook on the wall. And Lord Dracula came up to that one and grabbed him by the tail and threw him down, but he didn't hit the floor. He just disappeared, and we all knew he'd gone back... there. Back to Hell. 

But I had a special relationship with the Lady. That was the third bit of territory that never changed. Because I found it before anyone else did. A paper, with the Lady's picture on it. Not like the Lady herself; mine was just a paper with drawings, but it was definitely the Lady, and I kept it, and I never let anyone else see it, and they didn't know about it so they couldn't take it away. When Lord Dracula came, I hid it, too, afraid that he would ask for it. And when everyone else went off to their own corners, they couldn't see the Lady anymore, but I could. She was always with me. 

Maybe that's why I noticed when he came, and no one else did. The Prince, Lord Dracula's son. And I knew from the start that he must have something to do with the Lady, because he looked just like her. And I noticed because I'd looked at her picture so much, more than anyone else. It was almost the same face; I'm not exaggerating. And he must have known, too, because when he came, he looked around for just a minute, and then when he saw the Lady, he stopped looking at anything else. He just walked over toward her, and looked at her from close up, and looked at her from far away, and just looked at her, like he couldn't tear himself away from her. He must have been there for hours. I tried to think how he could look so much like her, and then I thought, she's Lord Dracula's Lady, Lord Dracula's son has her face, of course! I mean, it seems obvious to you, but that's with your human knowing. For a demon with a tail and horns, this takes a real stroke of genius to get it. But I did---not meaning to brag---and I knew who the Lady was. Yet again, I was her favorite, she and I had a relationship the other treasury demons didn't have, because I knew then that she was the wife, she was the mother. I never remember having a mother, so I watched the Prince very curiously. And I even knew what it meant, when he looked at her and the water drops ran down his face. I think... I know that I felt for him. I mean, I have to think I did. And for a demon that's a _real_ stroke of genius. 

But then, then he did the unthinkable thing! He walked up to the Lady, and _touched_ her! He picked her right up off the wall, and he started to carry her away! What were we supposed to do? We couldn't let him take her. But it was in our contract that we couldn't harm him, and it was in it that we couldn't touch her, so there was really nothing we could do. We couldn't wrest her out of his hands, we couldn't hold him back or try to stop him much at all for fear of harming him... We all just buzzed around in a swarm, screaming and screaming. 

All the noise must have roused Lord Dracula, because he came just in time to keep the Lady from being abducted. And he and the Prince talked for a long time. A torturously long time, as we were all watching while our Lady's fate hung in the balance. They talked loud, they talked soft, and everything in between. I can't begin to tell you everything they said. Lord Dracula said the Lady was his and no one else's. The Prince said she was his too because she was his mother---see, I was right! He also said he wanted to look at her always, because the last time he'd seen her, the time he remembered best, was something terrible and ugly, and he wanted to remember something better about her. All the others seemed not to notice, but I felt torn apart when he said that. The painting isn't the real Lady---could it be I was the only one who realized this, too?---and he said the real Lady was dead. And I felt sad, because she was special to me. And I felt for him. 

Finally, there came another quieter part, and Lord Dracula succeeded in getting the Lady away from him. And then he set her down leaning against the wall. It was a bit odd because he started to do it, and then he stopped and turned her around so the picture was toward the wall, out of sight, and put her down like that. And when he'd done that, his hand came up in an arc, and hit the Prince and knocked him down. He didn't get up again for awhile. And in the meantime, Lord Dracula picked the Lady up, and he still didn't look at her face, but he carried her away from all of us. If any of us ever saw her again, I don't know about it. We all just watched sadly, because it was in the contract that we had to let him take her, but we were sad to see her go. 

The Prince slept for probably an hour. If it hadn't been that we couldn't harm him, he never would've woken up. We were all angry at him, and the others were angry enough and curious enough to see what was on the inside of him, although I really wasn't. They played with his fingers, and the fastenings on his clothes, but for some reason I just wanted to look at his face. And I felt for him. By the time he woke up, one whole side of his face was black and blue. Since he had the same face as the Lady, almost, it hurt to look at it like that, and I started to understand a little what he meant, about remembering seeing her in a way that was terrible. 

Finally he got up, and he brushed us all away and re-did his shirt buttons, and he started to leave, hurrying because he was upset. And I don't know why I did it, but I stopped him. I flew over after him and I pulled on his sleeve. Even now it hardly seems real that I did it; I didn't think it through at all before, but I meant to, every bit. It was the hardest thing I ever did, and I did it just like that. I pulled on his sleeve and stopped him, and when he turned I held my treasure out to him. My very own picture of the Lady. My head spins when I think of it. The painting was gone, it was the only way I'd ever see her again, and I'd have her all, all, all to myself, but I didn't even look one last time. I held the paper out to him, and he took it, and then I shouted "LEAVE!" and chased him away, because I was dizzy from doing it, and I thought any second I might come to myself and snatch it back. I didn't even see the look on his face when he unfolded it and saw what it was, and I'm still sad and sick that I didn't see it. 

And he left. He ran. And I ran, too, dizzy and scared and thinking "What did I do? What did I do!?" And then I felt something on my tail. Something pulling. And I thought that's it! I broke the contract because I didn't protect it! I'm going back to Hell! And it pulled more and more until it stopped all at once, and I went rolling down from the top of the pile of money until I stopped, and I sat there for a long time, until I knew it was over. But I knew it couldn't be over. I wasn't back yet, I could still feel the coins under me, so there were things. It couldn't be Hell. I could feel them under my wings and my back and my legs and... not my tail. And then I started being happy. I jumped up into the air and felt with my hands and it was true! Blessed day, I didn't have a tail anymore! Not even one an inch long! 

And that's why I think there has to be something to it, to all the things I thought while I was there, in the nothing. 

It wasn't long after that that I was bound in the card. There was no tail for Lord Dracula to take me by and send me back, so he put me in that card, where he could just put me wherever and only get me out if he wanted me. I imagine he got a demon he could punish, one he could manage more. But I was getting a little sick of the treasury anyway. And this card has seen a lot of pockets and been touched by a lot of hands. 

_Half-Esper Laura_


End file.
